Some will fight about anything: the color of the new carpet, meaning of a biblical text, interpretation of a doctrine, or the credibility of the pastor's vacation plans.

By the credibility of the pastor's vacation plans, I do not mean to imply the holy fellow would lie about a silly thing like a vacation. I'm saying many of them fabricate huge stories that will discourage parishioners from following them.

For example, here's a typical pastor and parishioner conversation: "Good morning, pastor. That was a fine sermon this morning. Say, I was wondering if you and Selena had any plans for a summer vacation? Those of us in the Young Families Club would sure like to have you up at Camp Diligence this summer. We would even let you lead a Bible study (ha-ha) and Selena would probably enjoy taking the youngsters on a canoe trip since she loves being a teacher so much. And your kids could help out somehow - maybe by organizing the teen-agers into a cleanup crew. What do you think, Pastor?"

If the pastor is a clever fellow, he will have a vacation already arranged, something the average parishioner will not covet. The pastor could say, "Thanks for the offer, but Selena and I are going to be studying ancient Greek language texts during our vacation this year and the children will be going along to study the religion of the lost tribes of Antarctica."

I mention pastors not because they are essential in a good congregational fight, but because they usually are dragged into a central position whether they like it or not. Mind you, many pastors have lost their jobs because they were not aware of the dynamics of congregational battles. These disputes, which border on contact sports, can easily fool a diligent pastor. What the fighters are really looking for is not victory, but rather someone to blame when this fight gets out of hand.

And the fights often do go much further than they are intended. Pastors are fired without severance pay or promise of employment. Congregations break down and literally never regain a civil atmosphere. People are sometimes hurt beyond repair and go to their graves bitter and unforgiven.

To guard against that kind of devastation, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a 2.6-million member denomination, has instituted a program of reconciliation that might spare some congregations from these brutal conflicts. The plan is fairly simple. The synod has just completed its most recent training for mediators. During those six-day sessions, prospective mediators are taught how conflicts work and how people react. Then through role playing and Bible studies, mediators are taught to react as a Christian conciliator, a mediator or an arbitrator.

David Strand, director of public relations for the Missouri Synod, said the synod's 1,000 affiliated schools and 1,639 congregations produce disputes ranging from personnel issues to sexual harassment cases. Eventually, the denomination will have hundreds of trained mediators ready to wade into those disagreements and help people search for peace.

If you knew the truth, every denomination is scrambling to settle multitudes of disputes, lawsuits, and arguments that naturally follow the operation of any organized body of believers. And many of them end up clogging the courts of the church. Yes, church bodies have courts, and most of them act in awkward and arbitrary ways to settle conflicts. In fact, most of the time the church courts are bending so far backward to be fair that no one is satisfied with the final conclusion.

So this may work, and if it doesn't, who can blame the Missouri Synod for giving it a try? This is a society in conflict with itself. If we don't have an identified enemy, we will soon find one. And the saddest thing is when that enemy is a member of your own congregation. That's when the sport of congregational fighting turns to horror.

Clark D. Morphew